(TRAVEL) Bacolod’s Organic Farm Tour Day 1 – May’s Organic Farm

My first time in Bacolod was indeed memorable. For years I’ve been trying to schedule a trip to this beautiful city but to no avail, schedule constraints permit me to plan. But the start of last quarter this year gave me a brighter chance to fly there and experience everything I’ve been hearing about. Well, Negros Occidental, famously known as the sugar capital of the Philippines and you wouldn’t want to miss Bacolod, The Masskara Festival and the new home for organic agriculture farming.

The Agricultural Training Institute’s e-Extension Program together with my close blogger friends for years (we collectively called our group the OA Bloggers, short for Organic Agriculture bloggers, we visited Bacolod with one great mission, experience the rich organic environment the city is offering. So we all welcome the challenge and went straight!

We arrived there Thursday around lunch and May’s Organic Farm welcomed us with a very sumptuous lunch. May’s Organic Farm are true advocate of sustainable and responsible tourism. They mainly promote everything organic and natural, from the plants and animals to the organic graden’s amenities and food. Some of their rules are not allowing anyone to bring in non-organic food and beverage (i.e alcoholic beverages). Farmers come to May’s Garden to learn and study vermicomposting through seminars on how to produce organic fertilizer and other organic produce.

They are also an enthusiasts of a clean environment and they want to maintain clean recreational spaces and clean air in and around the organic garden.

But this one is my favorite. I started my Organic weekend with Fresh vegetable salad!

This is our room! (Myke Soon took this photo)

The refreshing place of May’s Organic Farm is owned by Mr Ramon and Mrs. May U.y From our happy lunch I noticed that day will be start of my healthy diet throughout the journey.

From fresh vegetables to salad to deserts, Mrs. May spoiled us with their delicious lunch and I after that we went to our respective rooms.

After settling down with our things in the afternoon, we went straight ahead for the briefings and discussion of Organic Agriculture. New to its nature, I brought notes and ears to fully understand the emerging industry. Mr. Ramon Uy discussed the flatform and system that they are currently engaging on the farm. They also discussed us the best practices they have been doing to help small and starting farmers help build their livelihood through borrowing and lending small budgets and materials and teach them. After the quick snacks and discussion, Mr. Ramon led us to their Vermicomposting.

Mr. Uy also showed us a manual Rope pumpfor watering needs. He said they use old tires and you can actually water some plants as it very handy. He also led us to aLemongrass Oil Distiller. The smell of the area is like the Aroma garden I dreamed of! Here are some oil that caught my attention.

LEMON GRASS OIL DISTILLER.

Extracting essential ols requires a distillation process. The distiller is primarily made up of three components, Steam generator, a condenser and a separator. The process of steam distillation: The plant part is placed in a vacuum-sealed container and heated

That was just our first day and there are more stories of more than 5 farms. We are very grateful to our host Mr. Ramon and Mrs May Uy for the generosity. Here we are, The Organic Agriculture Bloggers with Mr and Mrs. Uy